


To Lead, Be Led

by Mlle_Butter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Power Dynamics, Sad Wine Mom Hux, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren Has Issues, kylo ren is dirty and smells bad, the knights of ren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:18:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mlle_Butter/pseuds/Mlle_Butter
Summary: The First 100 Days of Supreme Leader Kylo Renor, how Kylo Ren learned that inadvertently staging a coup isn't all that it's cracked up to be.





	1. DAY 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> The tags will be updated as the story progresses.
> 
> Obviously will contain spoilers for The Last Jedi.

The ground of the cave is cold to the touch, and not as smooth as it looked upon first glance. It’s sharp edges dig into his knee where he continues to kneel, holding onto air where there once was reality. 

Outside of the room he can hear the thumping of troopers boots, the minute ‘click, click, click’ of their blasters tapping against their armor as they move in perfect sequence. Everything seems to move further and further away the longer he looks into his hand and sees nothing. Skywalker. The Resistance. Rey. Snoke. His mother and father. They’re floating away from him like the pieces of _The Supremacy_ now float through open space, propelled away from him like magnets of the soul.

“Supreme Leader.”

Hux’s voice anchors him to reality, pulling him back to his body and away from his thoughts, no matter how Ren wishes this were not so. Hux knows he has this power too, it was one of many things they discovered about one another in those far off nights of those far off years that have since been scraped clean by the knives of their war.

“General.”

“They’ve fled. There are no life forms left on this rock, I could tell you that just by looking at it. With your permission, I suggest we return to _The Finalizer_ once it arrives and there mount a pursuit.”

He can tell from Hux’s voice that he expects to be rebuked. Through the Force Hux feels like a wounded animal; frightened, solitary, waiting to die. He’s felt this way ever since Starkiller, and never more publically than in the last few days when he’s had some of his highest highs and lowest lows. Ren wishes it were easier to tune Hux out. To ignore the sounds of a living thing in pain. But nothing is ever easy for him.

“The troopers will finish their search in and around this cave,” Ren settles. Perhaps the reason nothing is ever easy for him is because he never lets things be easy for himself. “Collect any materials worthy of further evaluation, anything that might tell us where what remains of the Resistance may be going. And then we can return to _The Finalizer_.”

That has the sound of a plan, at least. It sounds like something a leader might say. Maybe even something Hux would say if he were not so beaten down by his own sense of purpose right now. But Hux has always been good at pretending he knows what’s going on, and Ren has never had that gift. Never been able to goad people, only to force them. He’s never had to be the person that he now finds himself impersonating.

A person that sits on a throne. Who is responsible for people. Ren doesn’t like people, and they don’t like him. They like a man like Hux, with his clipped voice and his shiny boots who is able to convince them that things are wrong now but are going to be better. Ren has never been one to ignore the failings of life, to tell people what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. 

He guesses that Hux nods (another familiar action he wishes he didn’t know about). “As you say, Supreme Leader.”

He hears the sounds of Hux’s boots on the ground, turning _(ready to leave him)_. 

“Hux.”

The need to confess is overwhelming. His lie has the shape of those creatures Hux told him live in the Arkanisian sea; inky black, 12 armed, growing and expanding in his chest and trying to reach out through his lips. If there was ever someone he could be honest with it was Hux, if he was going to tell anyone about the nature of his sin it would be Hux (who knew most of his other sins already and had never judged him for them the way others had).

But the magnitude of his lie...might not be something that could escape judgement of some kind. Its weight pressed into him, begging to be released anyway.

“There’s something I have to tell you.”

The words escape him almost fleetingly, as though he had barely thought about them at all.

“Can it wait until we’re back…” Hux falters. _(Home? Is that what you want to say?)_. “Until we’re back on the ship?”

Back on the ship could be hours. Ren will not want to be honest in a few hours, he knows this of himself. He rises from the ground, feeling the cold of the stone rising with him, and turns to face Hux. “No.”

Hux almost sighs. He’s tired, his face is drawn in the stark light of the cave. The left corner of his forehead is bruised, running like a watercolor painting into the red of his hair, but it is small and hasn’t blushed fully purple yet. Ren can sense how anxious he is to be back on his own ship, in his own rooms, to let his defenses down. “Right then,” he resolves, looking Ren in the face with the expectancy of a person who tames wild beasts. “What is it?”

“I lied to you.”

Easy enough. True enough.

“You what?” Hux answers back quickly, brow furrowing slightly, the green of his eyes narrowed and lost in the light, dulled to concrete.

“The girl didn’t kill the Supreme Leader” Ren said, the words coming easier now, perhaps too easy. “I did. I killed him and I didn’t feel anything while I did it. I would do it again.”

Hux might as well be carved out of stone. He goes still, body angled half towards Ren and half towards the door he was ready to walk through just a few moments prior. “I ...thought as much. I…” he begins, then stops, voice dying where it was already weak. He closes his eyes, head giving a small shake as though to clear it of Ren’s nonsense. “I don’t-”

“We killed his guards together, her and I,” Ren continued, though here he was less sure of his intent. He only needed to tell Hux the truth of Snoke’s death, and yet here he was charging forward still. “I’ve never felt such...hunger. It was energy. Pure energy. Peace...” he almost whispered. Speaking of feelings to Hux was always difficult and now was near impossible. “I thought _‘I can’t live without this. Without this strength.’_ For the first time I felt free to choose, free to follow my own desires.”

He cleared his throat, wary of sharing the whole truth but feeling helplessly compelled to do so. “I asked her to join me and rule the galaxy with me. She spat in my face.” 

Ren has seen Hux kill people before. Not just kill in the sense that he believed it to be for the greater good, on a battlefield. No, Ren has seen Hux murder people before, with anger in his heart and vengeance curling the full pout of his lips. 

Hux looks like he wants to murder him now.

“...Why are you telling me all this?” 

His voice is measured. Icy.

“...I don’t know,” Ren admits, hoping that his expression remains one of resolution, of aloofness. But he’s weak still. His face, scarred and strange that it is, betrays him every time, and he knows he probably looks as lost as he feels. 

Hux doesn’t look lost. He looks like he knows exactly where he is and hates every moment of being there. Ren can see the cords of his neck moving, swallowing thickly beneath a collage of fully formed bruises, but Hux’s eyes are steel and do not shift their gaze from Ren’s own.

“Are you going to kill me now, too?” Hux asks, and his voice doesn’t even shake. “Is that it?”

“No, I…” Ren wants to say _‘I couldn’t’_ , or at least protest more vehemently. But he doesn’t. After today he doubts Hux would believe him anyway. Ren wouldn’t believe it himself if their positions were exchanged. “No.”

“Supreme Leader…” Hux pushes out on a hard exhale, shaking his head once again. He purses his lips slightly, and looks to the door to check that they were truly alone, as though Ren himself would not be able to sense if someone were eavesdropping on them. Satisfied in their solitude, Hux turns back to Ren and takes a step closer to him. Ren tries not to get hung up on how close they are now that he’s done this, close enough that Ren can see that Hux’s eyes are green at this distance and no longer washed out by the light and shadows that are tossed over them. “Ren…” here he glances up at the other man, furtive but still with a touch of his murderous intensity of the past few moments. “Do you want this?”

“What are you talking about?” Ren asks softly.

“Do you want to be our Supreme Leader?” Hux asks, unwavering. “Do you want that for yourself?” 

“I don’t…” he begins, but falters. He’s not sure he understand what Hux is asking him and it angers him. He hates that Hux makes him feel like this, that he’s given Hux the power to make him feel inadequate. Ren is tired of being treated like a child but he’s tired of throwing Hux around more and so he tries to gather his thoughts. “I don’t-”

“I’m offering you a way out, Ren,” Hux interrupts, stepping away slightly to put some much appreciated distance back between them. “You can leave now, run after the girl and her confederates, catch them by the next cycle. Or you can make your own way, find a corner of the galaxy where no one will ever find you and live out the rest of your days like your fanatical uncle.”

Ren knows his mouth is falling open, but he can no longer feel much of his body. His rage, his hurt is boiling up through the Force and taking focus away from his physical reality. He wants to hurt Hux again, wants to send his blank, unmoved face straight into the rock of the cave and watch it bleed. 

_(Hux thinks that he’s weak._

_That he wants to run.)_

“I can tell them you attacked me. Forced me,” Hux continues, his unmoved face slipping into something akin to embarrassment for a moment, his gaze falling into a pocket of shadow on the ground. “They would have no trouble believing it now.”

He breathes in. He breathes out. He wants Hux to look at him again, to look in his eyes and see that he’s wrong, that Ren isn’t the weak one here. Slowly, his anger tempers down, simmering just beneath the surface of his thoughts. He tries to think like a leader but he just wants to think like himself, he wants to be selfish. A leader would not (or at least try not) to keep lashing out, so that’s what he should try to do he thinks.

“...Is that what you think I want?” he grinds out, hoping the barely concealed anger of his voice prompts Hux to look back up at him.

“Isn’t it? Didn’t you kill the Supreme Leader so you can be ‘free’?” Hux asks, and Ren can feel his disgust, his hurt, bubbling up through his voice as well as his throat, but still he won’t look up. “Well, here’s your chance. Go now, I won’t try to stop you.”

But Ren _wants_ to be stopped. He _wants_ to feel compelled to fight the way he was in Snoke’s Throne Room, he wants to feel like he has to do something. He’s lived almost the whole of his life without choice, he doesn’t know what to do with it or how to cope with having every outcome and option available to him. He wants Hux to choose for him, he wants Hux to put up a fight and tell him to stay _(to fight for him like nobody in his life ever ever does)_.

That Hux has no faith in him _(doesn’t even want him anymore)_ , does not immediately stoke the fires of his anger. Instead he feels himself freezing over, the icy clarity of his situation beginning to crawl up his spine like the cold air of the cave. 

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Hux.”

“No, Ren. I don’t know you at all. I realize that now.”

The words are tailor made to hurt him, and Ren hates that they do. He hates. He hates. He’s full of conflicting emotions and they all want to turn into anger again. Wants to yell, throw things, hurt Hux, but fuck FUCK he’s not going to. He’s not going to keep proving Hux right. 

He’s going to prove Hux wrong. That’s at least a choice he can get behind. He’s going to stay and he’s going to show Hux that he can be a true leader, can be someone worthy of staying. Worthy of being asked to stay.

“You know I’m not going to leave. I’m not going to leave the Order, everything we’ve built,” he emphasizes this, wants Hux to know that he does play a part in the Order whether Hux thinks so (has ever thought so) or not. “To chase something that doesn’t… doesn’t want me.”

_(A kiss on his forehead in front of the Millenium Falcon, his mothers eyes above him looking through him as though he’s already gone. His uncle above him, lightsaber drawn. Snoke above him, berating, never satisfied. A door shutting in his face. Hux, who won’t even ask him to stay.)_

Hux looks at him then. Where he was angry he is now resigned, but his eyes are full of something resembling the dying light of a challenge. His mouth is set in a thin line, but the effect is not severe on Hux’s lips, they’re too full (Ren used to tell him this, but it was a point of contention). 

“Fine,” Hux says shortly, eyebrow up in his signature stare, meant to show Ren that what he says now is beyond rebuke. “Fine. Just know that you had the chance to run away. To join the girl. Join the Resistance. And you chose not to. You don’t have any excuse not to be a leader to us now, Ren. You chose this.”

He says this with a particular intensity, outside the realm of his usual bossy-ness. It makes Ren wonder if Hux is not as angry as he wants to appear, if the fire he feels eating the other man up is not one of fury but of pain. He hopes this is true. Ren would like to believe in any possibility that Hux does not mean what he says.

“I know. I will be. I choose this. I choose-”

_(You. He almost says ‘I choose you, I choose us.’)_

“This.”

Repetition bothers him. He knows, and maybe even Hux knows, that this is not what he meant to say.

Hux sighs again. Nods. “Well, then,” he says softly, almost to himself. “I will relay your commands and leave you, Supreme Leader.”

He turns to leave again, and Ren tries to suppress the thought that Hux is leaving him instead of simply stepping through a doorway _(tries to ignore the impulse to make Hux stay, to force him not to leave)_.

But here he can prove himself.

“Hux.”

The other man stops, back rigid beneath his greatcoat (which, now that Ren is paying attention, needs badly to be brushed off), and his shoulders as tense and solid as concrete. Hux has always been made of stone to Ren, in one way or another. Though he doesn’t seem to want to face Ren any longer, Hux turns just enough to meet Ren’s gaze and thankfully his eyes are green and expecting, no longer fearful or murderous.

“Yes, Supreme Leader?”

“I don’t think I’ve….made myself clear, I suppose. In the last few hours, I mean,” Ren begins, wishing he was just an inch more eloquent and less stilted. “You’re a good- I mean, you’re an, um, exemplary leader. The Order is lucky to have you.”

Hux seems taken aback by this, brow furrowing in bewilderment. “Alright,” he says softly, as though to himself. “Thank you?”

“It’s just that I understand how my...actions today may appear to you. And they’re not reflective of how I feel,” Ren admits, voice low and mumbling. He doesn’t want to talk about this, doesn’t want to talk about how good it felt to toss Hux around and yet how bad it feels thinking of it now. But a leader should be able to accept responsibility (Hux is always good at that, damn him), so that’s what he’s going to do. “You’ll not be replaced. If you were… I guess, if you were worried about that.” 

Maybe Hux isn’t strong enough to ask Ren to stay, but Ren can be _(but maybe he needs Hux more than Hux needs him)_.

Hux still seems to be trying to make full sense of what Ren is trying to say, but he settles on a few quick blinks, a small shake of his head, and a nod. “Well,” he starts, then clears his throat. “Thank you again, Supreme Leader. I suppose that’s good to know.”

Ren nods back. “You may, uh, return to your duties, Hux.”

Is duties the right word? He can’t think straight.

Again. Hux turns and this time seems resolved to go out the door. “Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“Ren.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader Ren.”

“No, Hux, I-” he almost laughs, the stress and tension of the day alleviating momentarily. Hux could at times be the most unintentionally funny man he’s ever met, and never is that more appreciated than right now. “I want you to call me Ren, when we’re like this. Just the two of us. That doesn’t need to change.”

He’s not facing Ren, but Ren can imagine how his eyes close, how his lips pout out slightly as he breathes through his nose. “Is that an order?”

_(Does he want to order Hux to do this? Order Hux to pretend that at least in this way he doesn’t want things to change, wants Hux to be himself still? Has he come so low that he must order Hux to be his friend again?)_

“Yes.”

He still can’t see Hux’s face, but he can hear how Hux scoffs, imagines that familiar scornful look settling like a veil over his sallow features. “Very well then, Ren. It’s your choice.”

This time he leaves without Ren’s permission, and Ren fights the urge to call him back and ask him what exactly he should do now that he’s made so many of his own choices in a row, where he is supposed to go now when he continues to feel so lost.

* * *

They do not purposefully avoid each other for the rest of their time on Crait, or on the transport shuttle back to _The Finalizer_ , but distance is set between them anyway. Hux remains attuned to the crew, touching base with the flight team, tapping a message to the reconnaissance squad that remains on Crait waiting for their own transport, occasionally comming _The Finalizer_ with orders for information on how the secondary reconnaissance of _The Supremacy_ is going. Almost every minute his own comm beeps with notifications on the updated casualty list, and Ren very badly wants to tell him to at least silence it (but what would the point be? A silent death is still a death). Each time Hux opens it and scans it, eyes moving quickly from the left to the right to the left to the right, before huffing through his nose and turning away.

_(He’s looking for Phasma. Ren doesn’t think he’ll find good news)._

For his part, Ren remains towards the back of the shuttle, his cowl draped over him and successfully hiding his face away from the other occupants of the transport. He doesn’t want to observe, and he doesn’t want to be observed right now. There’s probably a room he could go into, a room reserved for the purpose of giving the Supreme Leader his own space away from prying eyes, but he doesn’t know where it is or much care to seek it out. This is the way he’s always done it, and he wants to remain in his own routines for as long as he can before he has no other option but to change them. 

Their docking back at _The Finalizer_ is met by what remains of her crew, which is not saying much due to the fact that, save for a few of Hux’s trusted captains and lieutenants, the vast majority still need to return from trying to reign in what remains of _The Supremacy_. Regardless, the remaining crew stands tall outside the viewport, and if they’re curious to see Ren after his self-enacted promotion then their faces don’t reflect it. 

The door of the transport opens as Ren stands beside it, watching as familiar steam wafts up from the joints and mechanics of the ramp as it lowers. Hux stands across from him, absentmindedly looking at his comm again and lifting a hand to smooth his hair back and slightly to the left, trying to hide the bruise that has now fully bloomed into a deep purple at his temple. When the ramp is fully positioned they step forward at the same time, going to exit and nearly colliding with one another before Hux realizes his mistake and almost sheepishly steps back to allow Ren to pass first. 

_(Ren wants them to do what they’ve always done, fight over who goes first and try to walk faster than each other down the ramp)._

Once down the ramp he’s met with Lieutenant Mitaka, who is not shivering and quaking at the sight of Ren for once. Ever since Starkiller the entire crew seems to have inherited a bit of Hux’s ability to maintain a stiff upper lip, and Ren finds himself thankful for that even if it was sort of fun to see grown men going out of their way to avoid him when they saw him coming. 

Mitaka bows slightly to Ren. “Welcome back to _The Finalizer_ , Supreme Leader.”

Ren nods brusquely. “Lieutenant.”

As Mitaka straightens he begins speaking in earnest, his voice sounding the slightest bit more relieved now that he has at least gotten past a cursory greeting. “We’ve prepared your quarters as General Hux instructed, and you’ll find all pertinent information regarding our ongoing mission on the remains of _The Supremacy_ has been forwarded to you as we receive it, as well as notices and requests for audiences from our investors. If you like we can begin setting up a holo-chamber-”

“No,” Ren says sharply, scowling and relishing in the way that Mitaka’s mouth shuts up like a clam. “I won’t see anyone else today. I’m going to my quarters and I do not want to be disturbed, understood?”

“Of course, Supreme Leader,” Mitaka nods quickly. “But would you like to me to put in a request to Medical for you? Are you injured in-” 

“No,” Ren says again, eager to get away from fucking Mitaka and his voice. His wounds from his fight against Snoke’s guards sting slightly, but he’d had them tended to on the transport to Crait. “I’ll deal with it myself.”

Mitaka lowers his head in acknowledgement. “As you say, Supreme Leader.”

And he waits, head lowered. And everyone waits there silently. Ren thinks he’s probably expected to say something, maybe make some sort of a speech since technically this is his first appearance on what is now his flagship as Supreme Leader. But he’s tired, and the day has been bad enough without him having to make a fucking speech in front of a crew who sees him as nothing but a beast who strangles his own subordinates. 

He settles on: “Return to your posts. There’s still much to be done.”

And that will suffice for now.

As he begins to retreat from Mitaka and the gathered crowd he hears Hux step up and Mitaka rush to meet him.

“General,” he hears Mitaka say, and his blood boils at how happy the man sounds to be addressing Hux. “We were so relieved to hear you were unharmed, the entire crew was-”

“Unharmed is a relative term, Lieutenant,” Hux responds curtly. “Set up an appointment for me with Medical, then have my personal holo-chamber prepared, I expect the rest of High Command is eager to discuss next steps.”

“Indeed they are, sir. I’ll relay your orders at once.”

If Hux says any more Ren doesn’t hear it, and thankfully so. 

He retreats past officers and troopers and goes thankfully goes unfollowed into the lift. Slamming the number of his floor, Ren pushes his cowl back from his head and shakes his hair out, hating the feeling of it being so unwashed. Taking his bangs in his fingers, he pushes them back and holds them just north of his forehead. 

Closing his eyes, he thinks that he doesn’t want to be in a lift again for the next 72 hours. In fact, he doesn’t want to go anywhere in the next 72 hours, he wants to go into his room and regroup, try to assess where he should be placing his attention, and then perhaps sleep.

When he reaches his floor he has to restrain himself from running out of the lift and down the hall to his room, and instead walks at what he hopes is a powerful but normal pace. His door is the same as he left it; a little more scratched, a little more concave than the rest of the doors on this floor, and he types in his access code with barely restrained relief. 

Relief which is instantaneously dispersed once the door is opened. 

All of his things are gone. The bed _(his bed)_ is made, the shelves are cleared of his few holo-records, the clothes that he knows he left scattered on the floor have disappeared, _his grandfather’s helmet is gone._

Everything is cleaned to the point of shining. Blank and ready to be inhabited by anyone in the galaxy, as though Kylo Ren had never been there at all.

Breathing picking up, Ren desperately searches his drawers, beneath his bed, in his sparkling, immaculate refresher, for any sign that this had been his room, that he had occupied this space for almost five years. 

But there’s nothing. 

Everything he had has disappeared from this space like Luke Skywalker had disappeared from the galaxy, like his fathers dice had disappeared from his fingers, like Rey had disappeared from his mind.

There’s nothing here anymore.

Crying out in rage, one long sound that builds and builds until he feels his throat blistering and his vocal cords straining, Ren slams his fist into the wall but the wall doesn’t bend to him. He hits it again, harder, and feels the skin of his knuckles breaking, but still the wall does not even shudder at his blows. Screaming, Ren turns to the mirror on the wall of the ‘fresher and lunges forward, ready to put his fist through the image of his own face.

But it is the sight of his face that stops him. His scream dies out.

His eyes are wide and dark, pupils blown like a bloodthirsty animal, and his teeth are bared in a horrible snarl, showing their badly formed depths all the way back to his molars. His face is sweaty, and this makes his cheeks look bright red and the rest of his face look white as the snow on Starkiller was. Around his head his hair is hanging in strings. He looks angry. Frightened. He’s dirty. He’s a rabid, hungry fucking beast.

_(Child)_

“FUCK.” 

He goes to his knees, breathing raggedly. His fists are clenched and he can hear the leather of his gloves creaking against his force, but he does not hit anything. Not even the ground he collapses on is pounded, or slapped. Ren kneels, head almost touching the floor until he does not feel like destroying something anymore.

_(A good leader doesn’t destroy something that he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t break something just because he wants to)._

Ren stays down for what he thinks is an hour before raising himself up, and staggering from the ‘fresher while trying very hard not to catch another glance of himself in the mirror.

Back in his room he can’t bring himself to look around for his things again, they’re clearly not here. With a hand that still tremors slightly he reaches into the inner pocket of his tunic and takes out his comm. Opening it and waving past the numerous notifications that blink for his attention, he immediately searches for Hux’s name, proud of how fast his fingers manage to move.

**where the fuck is all my stuff**

It’s perhaps not the most elegant way for a leader to conduct themselves but Ren has had enough of people's expectations for one day.

His comm makes no noise to herald the incoming message (Ren learned early on that unless it was on silent it never ceased to make noise), but Hux’s response lights up.

**Your things should be in your rooms.**

**well i’m in my fucking room and everything is gone, so**

**Your rooms, Supreme Leader.**

Oh.

He’s embarrassed by how obvious the answer to his question is, and shoves his comm back into his pocket and turns to the door.

“Unreal…” he whispers to himself, shaking his head. He thinks about turning, of casting one last glance over the space he’s occupied for so long, the place that had been his sanctuary, the one place where he could truly be alone if he wanted to be.

But the air smells different here now. Those aren’t his sheets on the bed. He doesn’t belong here anymore.

_(If he ever really belonged there in the first place)._

In the hallway he stops and looks towards the lift. After a moment he turns and enters the doorway to the escape stairs, beginning to climb.

No, he’s not doing anything else in the lift today.

Thankfully the Supreme Leaders quarters are just two floors above his own, and are so extensive that the wing they’re located in is often uninhabited outside of troopers on patrol. In fact, they seemed superfluous up until today, seeing as they had not been used in almost the entire time _The Finalizer_ had been a part of the Order’s fleet; Snoke had only personally been onboard once, and that was purely as a gesture. It had been the maiden voyage of _The Finalizer_ , in effect just a quick go around the stars while Snoke made a speech, but it was on that trip that Ren was introduced to the crew and Hux was appointed General. 

Ren doesn’t think Snoke ever even set foot in these quarters, and for that he feels immensely grateful. 

Instead of the usual code reader the door to his quarters is equipped with fingerprint recognition, probably to further limit the amount of people who could potentially enter and thus limit the possibility of assassination attempts. Ren removes his gloves, hissing slightly as his bloodied knuckles are pulled at, and places his hand in the center of the reader. After processing for a moment the reader lights up blue, flashing the words:

**SUPREME LEADER KYLO REN DETECTED**

Ren wonders at how fast the tech of the ship has been updated, that his title has been changed so fast. That his entire room had been ransacked and cleaned out in a matter of hours, that surely everyone in the galaxy knows by now that Snoke is dead and that Kylo Ren is their new ruler. No doubt most of this is Hux’s doing, that man can’t go one minute without a comm or a data pad in his hand.

The door swishes open, revealing the darkened impression of his new quarters. They are indeed expansive, too large and too spacious for one man on his own, and he steps into the antechamber warily, as though someone might be hiding in every shadow. The small chamber opens up into a much larger one, lit only by the viewport that expand from the ceiling to the floor, from wall to wall, so that he can see the galaxy that he’s conquering whenever he wants. The furnishings in this room are sparse, but look tasteful as far as he can tell, but he doesn’t much care for them or want them. 

All of this space is overwhelming.

With the light of the viewport he can see another sliding door, open slightly, and he can infer that there’s probably an office there (the layout is not much different from Hux’s room but there’s so much extra space). 

Passing a low table set beside what looks to be a couch similar to the one in Hux’s quarters, Ren can see for the first time that his grandfather's helmet has been carefully placed on the table like some morbid centerpiece. If someone thinks they’re making a joke they can honestly go fuck themselves.

He stops before it for a moment, looking down at the darkened impression of this talisman. It has been difficult to exist in the same space with this reminder of who he can never be, since Starkiller, since Rey. This is the first time he has been able to face it head on, but the darkness of the room is a comfort aiding him. He tries to at least pretend to be pleased. Skywalker is dead, his father is dead, Snoke is dead, the Resistance hangs in tatters, and he’s crowned himself Supreme Leader of the First Order. Surely his grandfather would be proud of all that he’s accomplished. Would no doubt be pleased at his influence. 

“Send me a sign.”

_(A sign? Of what? That he did right? That he hasn’t just enormously fucked up his life in a now irreparable way?)_

Stupid.

There’s another door that isn’t opened, and Ren knows this will lead to his room and so goes to it without a second thought. The urge to lie down in the dark, to not have to look at anything or say anything is becoming overwhelming, and he enters the room and closes the door quickly.

“Lights 30%.”

His new room is large, like everything else, and is again equipped with an over large viewport along the left wall (Ren can’t help but think that this is probably an aesthetic choice since it certainly doesn’t promote safety having a large window in the Supreme Leader’s bedroom). He can see that the bed is larger than the one he had in his old room and that his sheets are barely covering it, but they are definitely his sheets. 

His things are here. He can smell a bit of his old room hiding beneath the somewhat bleach-y cleaning smell of the room, but he can feel a bit of his old self again. 

Without shame, he goes face down on the bed, burying his face in his sheets and trying to smother himself in their smell. He almost moans at the scent and the realization that they hadn’t been washed before they had been placed, and he grabs at them desperately, pulling them up around his face and dragging the pillows with them.

“Lights out.”

Ren doesn’t even feel his eyes close before he’s asleep.

* * *

_He dreams of his hands._

_He dreams of his child hands being held softly by Leia Organa, how her hands would wrap all the way around his and her thumbs would rub soothingly over his wrists. How when he clenched his fists all she had to do was push one finger up against his knuckles and he would unfold for her like cheap flimsi._

_How he would bite his nails and suck his thumb as a child, how Han Solo had rubbed a foul paste over his fingers to get him to stop._

_His hands grow, knuckles knobby and constantly bruised. Calluses grow where he holds his saber, and he can see how Luke Skywalker used to first touch his elbow then flow all the way down his forearm and settle his robotic hand over his fingers to correct his form._

_Dreams of how once he left the temple he started biting his nails again, gouging the skin of his fingers first with his teeth then with his nails._

_He sees Rey, with her hand outstretched. How his hand was so much larger than hers, how his fingers could have wrapped around her wrist and shattered it if he had wanted._

_But he didn’t want that, he just wanted warmth. Wanted her hand to warm his own._

_It didn’t._

_The hands he has today are around Hux’s neck, tightening and tightening. Without gloves he can see how pale his skin is against the bruises of Hux’s neck, the color of his face turning from red to purple as he gasps. Hux’s mouth is open, but no sound accompanies the shape of Ren’s name._

_His hands cannot stop tightening their grip even as he begins to desperately wish they would._


	2. DAY 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the warm welcome to this story! 
> 
> Enjoy the chapter!

He wakes drenched in sweat.

The room is too hot and he had fallen asleep fully dressed, cowl and boots still attached to him. 

Raising himself up slightly, Ren is momentarily confused by his surroundings. There wouldn’t typically be so much light in his room at this hour, he shouldn’t be able to sprawl like this without an arm or a leg coming fully off the bed.

But then it comes back to him.

Sighing, Ren puts his face back down, tugging his pillow over his head. He lies there silently, trying to slow his breathing down, calm himself so that he can go back to sleep and pretend nothing has changed for a while longer. 

It’s no use, he can’t get back to sleep once he’s woken up. 

Groaning, he pushes himself back up and looks past the matted hair in his face at the chronometer on the nightstand. It’s late. Or early, rather. 

Rolling onto his back, Ren pushes his hair away from his face and considers just staying in that position until it’s early enough to justify showing up on the Bridge. At this hour the skeleton crew should be the only ones operating, but it’s entirely possible that present circumstances (read: inadvertent coup) are keeping everyone up later than normal. 

He wonders if Hux is still up. Wonders what Hux would do if Ren were to show up on the Bridge at this late hour now that he can’t exactly order Ren to go away anymore.

Thinking of Hux makes him ache, oddly. A pain almost like hunger. 

His feelings about this new position they find themselves in are complicated, unexpected. Whether he’s happy Hux is going to be with him in this is yet to be seen, but Ren feels a sort of dread when he thinks about it. As though he knows he is going to fail and Hux is going to be there to watch him do it the whole way through, always judging in one way or another. 

Hux knows what he’s doing. Hux was raised this way, knows the Order in his marrow the way Ren probably never will even if he dies defending it. All Ren has ever done for the Order has been in either Snoke’s interest or his own interest, he knows nothing about protocol or the military or anything outside of plunging his saber through people’s chests.

_(He hates that Hux knows more than him, that Hux is the only person that might tell Ren what exactly he has to do now to command an army)._

That knowledge is indispensable for Ren now and so Hux is made indispensable. 

Fucking Hux. Needy Hux. Snivelling Hux. Always on Ren’s heels to gloat or to reprimand, never a helpful word on his lips. 

Ren sighs hard through his nose.

But it hadn’t always been like that.

For a while he was stupid enough to think that he and Hux were friends. And they were, weren’t they? The closest thing to a friend Ren had ever had. 

That had been when they were still just glorified children. 

_(Ren still wonders if Snoke knew. If he had noticed how Ren’s thoughts had lingered on Hux and Snoke thought it was amusing)._

When he met Hux he was still in his 20’s and thought he knew everything. With fresh blood on his hands he felt impenetrable, ready to fulfill his destiny by whatever means necessary. But meeting a red-haired officer in the Throne Room of Snoke’s base shook him in some way, intrigued by the thought of why Snoke himself would be issuing a promotion to a Captain not yet 28 years old. 

Unremarkable as that first meeting was in hindsight, Ren found himself looking for more. First from Snoke, then from the minds and whispered conversations of other officers. Hux’s reputation, such as it was, did not suggest the man he appeared to be. How could a man who at first seemed so plain, so proper and prim, be responsible for the things he was accused of?

An army of rabid orphans overseen by a gaggle of disgraced Imperial officers, stories of Hux grinning madly as he watches his father’s body disintegrate from an assassination he was rumored to have planned himself.

Ren would have expected Hux to be a man who caught his own food with his teeth. 

It was these qualities that drew Ren in the first place. So that by the time Hux himself was intrigued by the masked man that stalked around _The Absolution_ waiting for Snoke to give him missions they already had well-established impressions of each other.

Hux as a young man was not much different from Hux as an adult, but in Ren’s mind they stand as two distinct individuals. The young Hux was already stern, merciless, ambitious in a way that was easy for Ren to relate to. Quicker to laugh at someone's mistakes and not offer instruction the way Hux might now, nastier in humor and all the funnier because of it.  
Young Ren found himself captivated by Hux’s cruelty, amused at his wit, respectful of his mind. 

He was...perhaps more willing to open. And to open others, in return. 

He remembers the euphoria of being roomed on a base or a starship that Hux was stationed on, the nights where Hux could sneak into his room with a bottle of whisky and they could talk easily with one another, understand each other in simpler ways. 

They both wanted something within the other, it would seem. And for a short time Ren really did believe he had found what he was looking for.

Ren remembers one night in particular, shortly before Hux was made Admiral. Hux had been free that night and wouldn’t be due back on duty until late the next morning, and he had gone to Ren’s room. They discussed the design of the weapon that would become Starkiller, spoke of their home planets and the planets they would like to one day visit, and Ren drifted off thinking about the stars. 

He awoke some time in the night to find Hux had not left his room but instead was asleep beside him, his face turned towards Ren in sleep. As Ren looked at Hux’s face, so smooth and untroubled, Hux’s eyes had opened slightly and looked back at Ren. Perhaps Hux was still in the grips of sleep, or perhaps he really meant to do it, but Hux had smiled at him then. 

Soft. Sweet. Gentle.

All of the things Ren knew Hux was not, but there they were. Drawing him in. 

The smile faded slowly as Hux closed his eyes once again and drifted back to sleep, but as Ren looked at him in astonishment he could swear the stamp of it remained.

Hux had gone by the time Ren woke the next morning.

And what happened next-

**(Stop thinking about it)**

-didn’t matter anymore anyway.

He pushed himself up and off his bed, as though the bed itself was seeking to propel him back into his unwanted memories. Standing, Ren made no pretense of trying to alter his appearance, instead letting his wrinkled clothes fall into whatever position on his body they liked and his hair to hang east where it clearly had conformed to his head in his sleep. He needed a wash badly and could only imagine what he smelled like, but for some reason he wanted to keep this stain on himself.

Bells and whistles were Snoke’s forte, being covered in gold and surrounded by extravagance was something he enjoyed. 

Ren isn’t like that, he likes being surrounded by his own animal scent, it makes him feel somehow rebellious.

It would do him a favor to go to the Bridge and show them that this is how their new leader conducts himself. That he’s able to distinguish himself from his predecessor. 

Mind made up, he leaves the stifling heat of his room and crosses as quick as he can through his new quarters, narrowly avoiding colliding with his new furniture and a few unsuspected doors.

The coolness of the hallway soothes him, and he stands breathing it in for a moment. Pressing a bare hand against his face he can feel that he’s slightly feverish, but this is no doubt a side effect of sleeping in all of his clothing and not something medical, or at least he hopes this is the case. The last thing he wants to do is go back to Medical, after all that time spent there being degraded, coddled. Slathered in gel and dipped in tanks and fussed over.

No, he will handily be avoiding both lifts and Medical for a long while.

Shaking his head, Ren turned to the emergency stairwell and began his descent downwards.

To get to the Bridge on foot he’ll have to go down to Deck H, cross over into Sector 9 and from there find the emergency stairs down to Deck E which should hopefully take him right outside the Bridge, but this is a trail he hasn’t taken before. He thinks he might be the only one who makes regular use of the emergency stairs on the ship, save for the few officers he suspect use them to fuck between shifts, so he should have them pretty well mapped out by now. This has not been the first time he’s wanted to avoid the lift (or been practically banned from them for an indeterminate amount of time). 

It’s quiet by this time, no noise echoing through the walls or through the open doorways, which surprises him. He expected more confusion, more movement, more scrambling to get everything together, but it feels strangely silent as his feet echo around him. Perhaps the crew is just burned out from so many different upending circumstances and they’ve given up trying to catch up. Perhaps there have been contingency plans in place for these sorts of events, so it’s not altogether a complete surprise to them.

_(Why wouldn’t a contingency plan exist for the current Supreme Leader being speared in half and his flagship being mowed down by a renegade cruiser?)_

He honestly wouldn’t put it past Hux to have thought ahead for things like this. 

Exiting the stairwell, he finds Deck H as quiet as he expected. Typically Deck H isn’t all that noisy to begin with, seeing as its more of a recreation floor, holding some of the more opulent conference rooms for visitors and investors as well as the ships bar. Save for the hours just after the evening shift this floor goes mostly unobserved aside from troopers on rounds, but Ren has seen days on The Finalizer where officers filled the place to standing room only.

These people like to think they’re so civilized, Ren scoffed. Ridiculous. Typical ex-Imperial brats.

_(So much worse than ex-Republican brats, right?)_

Fuck it.

The sliding door to the bar is slightly ajar, in the way they don’t fully open or close when an officers personal code overrides their programming. Approaching somewhat curiously, Ren can hear a sound emanating from within, but the sliver of the room he can see past the door is dark. The sound grows more apparent as he steps up to peer in through the opening: it’s a beeping. Coming in starts, interspersed by long pauses, but continuous.

He knows that sound. Knows the only person who probably has not silenced it by now.

Pushing into the dark, the light from the hall illuminates only part of the spacious area. He can see chairs stacked up on tables, floors that had recently been cleaned, part of the long bar areas, benches empty, light bouncing off of an array of liquor bottles. He has to scan the room twice before he finds what he’s looking for.

The figure of a man sits slumped in a chair facing the wall in the farthest left corner. Not facing a viewport, not facing the door, but straight on towards the wall, as though the man had no interest whatsoever in anything outside the dark. Beside him on the small table sits an empty bottle of wine and a mostly consumed second bottle, no glass. Next to the empty bottle he can see a comm resting on the table, beeping and winking a small red light. 

Ren adjusts the door slightly, bringing more light to fill the dark areas of shadow, and the light illuminates Hux’s tousled red hair.

_Beep...beep…_

He approaches quietly, not wanting to startle him. But Hux doesn’t appear to hear him or at least doesn’t care. It could be that he’s too drunk to care, which is the option Ren favors at this point. Stepping up to stand just behind Hux’s right shoulder, Ren can see that his gaze is unfocused on the wall, his head moving minutely back and forth as his hands lay limply over his thighs, elbows resolutely anchored to the armrests of the chair.

“Hux.”

The sound of his own name seems to almost break him out of his drunken trance-like state, eyes moving to glance over at Ren before his head does, wobbling a bit all the way. He doesn’t seem surprised to see him, perhaps only unhappy if the furrow of his brow is anything to go by.

“Ren.”

_(He tries not to think of how he had missed hearing Hux slur his name. How charmed he was the first time, to hear how full it sounded rolling out of Hux’s mouth, how it seemed to elongate and thicken. ReEn.)_

“What are you doing here?”

Alone. In the dark. Drunk.

Hux sniffed, his nose scrunching up in that petulant way he would have sneered at on anyone else. Looking away from Ren, he let his head fall back into place looking unsteadily at the wall. “What are you doing here?”

So it was going to be like that.

“I was on my way to see how things were on the bridge, _General_ ” Ren shot back, never minding how he shouldn’t be letting himself sink down to Hux’s level anymore. “Why aren’t you there?”

Hux looks back at him at that, gaze unfocused slightly but contemptuous still. “Well, unlike _some people_ ,” he emphasized, bringing his head slightly forward. “I actually completed my duties once we arrived back onboard. I actually oversaw the cleaning up of _The Supremacy_ , and I actually met with High Command already and allowed them to chew me to pieces over all this. Not to mention I have been listening to _this_ shite,” he spat, shooting a furious glance at the still beeping comm. “For the better part of a day. We can’t all have nap time while the karking sky falls, you know?”

Ren bristles at this. Wants to yell at Hux about how he has no fucking idea about what Ren has been through in the last few days, but he holds his tongue _(these displays of self-control are foreign to him, he wants a reward for for not behaving in the manner that he wants to conduct himself but there’s no one left that might compliment him anymore)._

“You’re not answering my question,” he grits out, his sore knuckles flexing and clenching. “What are you doing here?”

Hux’s sneer slips, turning melancholy around the edges. His eyes, darkened pools of disdain, begin to drain away into something Ren has never seen in Hux’s eyes before; something devastatingly sad, breakable in the way that Hux has never been. He turns his face away from Ren, looking towards the table, towards the bottle, and brings a hand up to run a finger almost absent-mindedly down its neck. Ren almost opens his mouth to stop Hux from taking the bottle up, but Hux does not move to grasp it, simply runs one finger up and down the neck of the bottle.

Just as Ren goes to repeat his question, Hux’s voice reaches his ears.

“Phasma is gone.”

The statement, as direct and purely factual as it is, hurts Hux. Ren can feel his ache moving through the room, almost pulsing.

“I thought so,” Ren nods. He had liked Phasma, even admired her in some ways. She was like him; an outsider, trying to mold themselves to fit the Order. But Phasma was a success story for them, she excelled at everything they set before her and Ren had never had that. His talents were somewhat singular in that way. “I’m sorry.”

Before he can be stopped Hux takes the bottle and takes an enormous gulp. A drop runs from the crease of his lips and down the side of his chin, and Ren resists the urge to wipe it away himself, absently thinking of how that has to hurt Hux’s injured throat. Even now he can still see bruises rising up out of Hux’s collar like a hand from the grave, purple and rotten. 

Hux has to stop drinking for a moment, take a breath, and his lips are stained a deep red, the drop that ran from his mouth to his chin like a bloodstain on his face. Ren knows how Hux likes to put on airs of being the kind of man that drinks nothing but caf and brandy but how deep inside if he wants to be drunk and drunk fast he’ll reach for this cheap wine. 

_(Hux is drunk more than he cares to admit)._

But Ren has never seen him this sloppy. It almost makes him feel badly for Hux.

Not bad enough to let him keep doing this to himself, however. So when Hux goes to take another drink Ren’s hand intercepts the bottle.

“You’ve had enough, Hux.”

Hux glares at him like Ren is not now the Supreme Leader, like nothing has changed between them. His eyes are dark, likely running through a hundred ways he wants to kill Ren, and slowly his tongue inches out of his mouth and runs minutely over his top lip to gather the remaining drops of wine from his skin. He gives one last jerk to the bottle, but Ren’s grip on the neck has not loosened. Sneering, Hux pushes the bottle and thus Ren’s hand away.

“Fine,” he spits petulantly, crossing his arms and slumping a bit in his seat. “Whatever you say, sir.” 

Fighting the urge to argue with a drunk person is not Ren’s forte, so instead he lifts up the bottle himself and takes a healthy swig. He doesn’t typically drink but the thickness of the alcohol on his tongue feels satisfying right now. Evidently cheap, but it doesn’t burn.

“Don’t start,” he says softly, stepping across Hux and going to the table. The wine must really have been cheap since he doesn’t see a cork, just a plain top waiting to be twisted back in place. Shaking his head, he replaces it. 

He hears Hux scoff. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Silence drops between them suddenly. Ren tries to think of some way he can break it, get Hux out of here and up to bed so that he can continue on his mission to survey the Bridge, but his plans are thwarted by the feeling of a glove touching the back of the hand not currently resting on the table.

Turning his head he sees Hux still lazily slumped in his chair, but his eyes are intensely focused on his own hand moving over Ren’s. His fingers move to cup Ren’s own ungloved ones, holding it the way Ren had seen men receive the hands of female senators in his childhood; delicate, regal. Hux’s thumb moves to run across Ren’s nails, though, and he gives a not unkind huff of laughter.

“Still biting, I see,” he whispers, almost to himself.

“I never stopped,” Ren replies, not quite understanding why his voice goes soft to accompany Hux’s. 

It looks like Hux wants to smile, but he’s too focused on looking at Ren’s hand to bother. His thumb travels up Ren’s middle finger to run gently over the darkest of his bruises, and it makes Ren shiver imperceptibly at how good it feels to be touched softly for once. 

“What did you do?” Hux asked, voice still soft, words still thick with his drunk tongue.

Ren looks away, cheeks warming. He doesn’t want to admit to being the same person he always is, doesn’t want to elicit Hux’s disdain.

_(He doesn’t want Hux to let go of his hand, to stop touching him kindly, to take his warmth away)._

“I hit the wall in my room,” he says simply. “But I didn’t break it.”

Hux nods and thankfully does not take his hand away, just continues letting his thumb travel over Ren’s knuckles, glancing over the fresh scabs like a balm for their sting. “Looks like it hurts.”

“It doesn’t, really,” Ren shakes his head. He’s had much, much worse and received far less attention than this for his pain. Biting the inside of his lip he looks back at Hux’s neck, at the imprint of the Force wrapped around him. “Do yours?”

Looking away from Ren’s hand, Hux’s eyes meet his with surprise, nearly apprehension. After a moment Hux’s head gives a small shake. “Not anymore.”

Ren wants to feel shame, wants to be chastised by Hux. He wishes Hux would stop looking at him like Ren could lash out at any moment, wishes that Hux hadn’t reached out and took his hand.

“I’m…” he starts, but his throat stops up suddenly. He clears it and tries to ignore the heat in his cheeks. “Would you like an apology?”

This time Hux does laugh and it is a bit unkind. He drops Ren’s hand and brings his up to rub at his eyelids as he shakes his head. “No, Ren. I would not like an apology.” 

“Alright,” Ren nods, clenching up his hand. He misses the warmth already, he wishes he hadn’t said that. 

He needs some sort of guidebook for not completely fucking up every situation he enters into.

Hux goes quiet again, hand remaining up near his face, half curled like a snake ready to lash out. He sighs heavily, and appears lost somewhere in his mind. Somehow absent.

Ren tries to think of a way to call him back.

Hand covering his eyes once again, Hux’s lip gives the slightest of trembles. “I’m going to miss her, Ren.”

The room almost echoes with Hux’s equal amounts of pain and embarrassment at this. He doesn’t want Ren to see how much it embarasses him to admit this, how much it hurts to acknowledge the pain, how it shames him to even have it. Hux takes in a deep breath, brings his hand down his face and covers his neck, and Ren can see him swallowing thickly beneath his collar.

“I’d never had a friend before her…” Hux continues, gaze cast downwards toward the floor, towards the shape of his boots. “Besides you, of course.”

He says it so casually, so softly, that Ren wonders if he had never woken up from his dreams to begin with. That he might still be in his strange new rooms, dreaming of Hux calling him his friend. 

Hux sniffs slightly, and looks up at Ren, still in a daze. “Do you feel the same?”

Ren frowns, blinking. “About Phasma?”

“About your girl,” Hux says softly, and in his face there’s something dark, something Ren knows wants to hurt him. “The scavenger.”

His fists clench up again, but it’s not warmth he wants this time. This time he wants to hurt Hux back.

“Are you going to miss her?”

Without thinking Ren sends his hand out, pushing out with the Force. The chair Hux is slumped in rapidly falls back, front legs lifted up through the air and back careening towards the ground, and Hux lets out the sort of undignified little scream that’s been a current fixture of his for the past few days. 

But Ren stops himself. He freezes the chair an instant before Hux’s drunk, messy body would have slammed into the carpeted floor, and simply suspends it there, the back legs of the chair balancing precariously on thin air. Hux’s hand clench at the arms of the chair, his legs raised up and trying to find some balance on the now suspended front end. His eyes are wide, surprised.

He’s shocked. Shocked that Ren did not let him fall. 

Ren finds himself shocked, too.

_Just let him fall,_ he wants to say to himself, _teach him a lesson again_. But it would be useless. As useless as trying to put his fist through a wall, as useless as reaching out for warmth when his hands are cold.

“Fuck…” he spit softly at himself. “ _Fuck_.”

Gently, he eases the chair back onto all four of its legs. Hux is taking a few deep breaths, slow, still drunk, but the look on his face moves from shock, to confusion, to resignment. His hand goes back up, pulling at his collar before simply resting again on his bruised neck, eyes resolutely downcast and away from Ren. 

_(He expects Ren to hit him)._

This sensation, of actually frightening Hux, is foreign to him. For so long Hux has been fearless, had been stalwart in his demeanor towards Ren, unwaveringly stern. And now he sits there, heart pounding, wondering where Ren is going to try to strike him next.

_(He had thought the same of Snoke)._

Ren doesn’t want to be like Snoke. He doesn’t want to be the kind of leader that has to smack people around to take him seriously.

He moves towards Hux slowly, trying not to look threatening, trying not to look like the same man who nearly cracked his skull against the ground a few moments ago. Hux’s eyes remain towards the ground, but move in the direction of his approaching shadow. He shrinks slightly, pressing himself more firmly against the back of the chair, hand flattening against his neck.

Hesitating, Ren brings his hand up and he can see Hux’s eyes close, can see his face flinch away. He almost brings his hand back down, but he steels himself, and brings his hand to rest on Hux’s shoulder as gently as he can. The planet he was raised on had lothcats, and he remembers always trying to coax them from their tiny homes, forcing himself to try and be slow, to be careful. 

He feels that way now, reaching out for Hux.

“I know that you don’t want it…” he begins, his voice soft again, trying to be quiet like they were before he ruined everything. “But I’m sorry. For all of it.”

He can hear the sticky sound of Hux swallowing, just before Hux slowly turns his face to Ren’s direction. His nose is just about brushing the skin of Ren’s wrist, and he tilts his face up to look up at him. Though his eyes are by no means clear, Hux seems to take in his words. He considers them, lips twitching momentarily before he sighs again, and gently nods his head.

They simply look at each other for a moment. Ren wonders what he looks like now, sleep-rumpled and unwashed as he is, and thinks he and Hux must both look equally terrible. 

They’re certainly a pair to try and conquer the galaxy. The unwashed Supreme Leader and his drunk General. 

Hux’s lips are still stained, it makes them look larger, wet. His eyes are heavy lidded, looking up at Ren like he’s the only clear point in cloudy vision, and Ren find himself wanting to fall, fall, fall down into their darkened depths and drown. 

Hux’s reddened mouth tilts down towards Ren’s wrist, and Ren takes his hand back fast enough to startle Hux. 

“You’re going to bed.”

Ren leaves no room for argument.

The other man looks disappointed somehow, and he closes his eyes, letting his head fall back. “I’m not walking right now, Ren.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He wants to groan in frustration. Everything needs to be an argument with Hux, nothing can ever be easy. “You’re leaving this room and going the fuck to sleep.”

“If I stand up right now something bad will happen,” Hux slurs, and Ren can almost believe it with the way Hux’s head has started nodding again. “I promise you that.” 

He’s not getting Hux out of this room without a fight, then. Well, fine. Ren likes a good fight.

Taking a deep breath, he takes Hux’s beeping comm from the table and pockets it.

Hux’s brow furrows. “What do you think-”

Without hesitation Ren pulls Hux up by his collar and heaves him up into his arms. He wraps one arm under Hux’s flailing legs and uses the other to push Hux’s chest against his shoulder, successfully pinning Hux’s slighter body against his.

“ _Put me down!_ ” Hux practically shrieks, trying to kick his legs out but only causing Ren’s grip to tighten further. He slaps at Ren’s back as Ren begins to walk, avoiding the stacked chairs and tables in the shadows. “I’m not joking!”

“You don’t know what a joke is, Hux.” 

“Ren, I’m really serious,” Hux’s voice nearly groaned out, arms grasping at Ren’s shoulder in some effort to stop his movement. “I think I might vomit on you.”

Hux’s weight was not unsubstantial, he clearly had more muscle on his frame than Ren had anticipated and about 10 pounds were probably added from those fucking boots. But Ren found he was having little problem carrying him this way.

_(He remembers hearing stories of how Han Solo had tried to do this when he married Leia Organa. He thinks that she probably reacted the same way Hux is reacting now)._

It would all be going much smoother if Hux stopped trying to knee him in the face. “Stop trying to fight me. Hold onto me like an Ewok, it will feel better.”

“Do I look like a karking Ewok?”

Ren snickered as he turned into the emergency stairwell. Hux’s room was just a flight below if he remembers correctly, which is a good thing considering Hux gave a loud groan and actually did wrap his arms around Ren’s neck as he started down the stairs.

“Oh, stars, don’t walk so fast,” Hux whispered, pressing his forehead against Ren’s neck. “Oh, I’m fucking spinning. Why don’t you just use the lift?”

He’s trying as hard as he can to ignore the feeling of Hux’s breath on his neck, of the tightness of his arms, the weight of him being supported entirely by Ren. “I don’t want to.”

“And you always get what you want, don’t you, Ren?” Hux said softly, lifting his head to speak directly into Ren’s ear. “One way or another.”

“Shut up,” Ren said. Hux’s criticisms were annoying at the best of times and now, drunk and having to be carried to bed by his superior, they were as unnecessary as they could possibly be. To punctuate his words, he jumped down the last three steps, letting Hux’s body jostle and adjusting his grip harshly.

“Fucking hell!” Hux cried, his arms tightening around Ren’s neck and shoulders, fingers digging into the other man’s shoulder blades. “Oh, you fuck. I really am going to now…”

“Your room is right there, hold on a bit longer,” Ren said brusquely, turning down the hallway he knew would take them straight to Hux’s room. 

“You smell disgusting as well, you know?” Hux rambled. “Smell like bantha shit ruminating on toast. It’s not helping. When was the last time you bathed?”

“It’s been a busy few days for me, too.”

Hux scoffed, and Ren felt his head fall heavily against his shoulder blade. “You’re a beast.”

It would be easy to keep arguing with Hux, it always is, but now they’ve reached Hux’s door and Ren’s hand is on the entry pad and ready to punch in the numbers to get into the room. 

He freezes. He remembers Hux’s room code. Remembers it like he’s been using it himself for the past five years. Pulling his hand back, Ren wants to bang his head against the door. He doesn’t want Hux to know that he remembers.

“What is it?” Hux asks, not lifting his head from where it now appears anchored to Ren’s shoulder.

“What’s your code?” 

Hux groans into his shoulder. “It’s 8233.”

Punching in the numbers, Ren finds himself getting more and more anxious to get Hux out of his arms, get his voice away from his ears. He thought he had gotten better at keeping his distance from Hux, that he was no longer in danger of wanting to be closer, of wanting at all. But now, the longer he holds Hux close to his chest, he doesn’t feel so sure. It will be better for both of them for Ren to keep his distance _(now more than ever)_. 

The room is pitch dark, but the door to Hux’s personal office is open and the glow of the viewport is leaking in from the other room. It doesn’t look like much has changed since the last time Ren was here, but that’s unsurprising. Hux hates change almost as much as he hates being told what to do by people he sees as unworthy, and he’s been dealing with a lot of both today.

“Do you remember where my room is?” Hux asks, even as Ren moves assuredly through the space and towards the door he knows will take them straight to Hux’s bed.

“Yes,” Ren says, hoping it doesn’t sound like an admittance of something. He pushes the door with his foot, successfully opening it. “Lights 30%.”

Though he’s been in Hux’s quarters before, and has seen the inside of the room, this is his first time stepping into it. It’s predictably pristine, void of personal items on the small shelf that lines the right wall, allowing room for what look like actual paper books. This surprises him; Hux loves technology, loves every iteration of it, so Ren expected him to see paper books as something superfluous, unnecessary. 

The bed is so neatly made that it looks uncomfortable, as though it were made of stone. But resting on top of the regulation sheets is another surprise; Hux isn’t using the standard gunmetal gray comforter, he has what looks to be a quilt. It isn’t vibrant, the colors are muted, faded, and the material looks cheap. The pieces are not cut correctly, some are half-hazard and it looks like the stitching has had to be re-done in several places. 

Ren finds himself charmed by this somehow. Charmed enough that he doesn’t dump Hux on the bed like he wants to, but places a knee on the bed so he can lower him gently. 

It feels oddly ceremonial, intimate, to lay Hux down. It feels like he’s placing him, like Hux is something he can take up and arrange the way he likes. 

He feels Hux sigh against his neck at the feeling of the mattress beneath his back, but he doesn’t let go of Ren’s neck. Ren tells himself that because Hux doesn’t let go he won’t either, so they remain there. His nose and mouth are pressed up against Hux’s hair, and he can smell how Hux is clean and wonders why Hux is keeping his face hidden in Ren’s neck if he smells as bad as he says he does.

Hux’s hair moves with his breath, and it almost feels like he’s capable of breathing him in. Like he can hold Hux in his lungs like smoke and never let him out. 

“Ren…”

_(There it is again, damn it. ReEn…He loves it, he hates that he loves it)._

He needs to pull away. 

_(He wanted the warmth, he wanted it, but this is too much. This is too warm, this is burning him)._

“Ren,” Hux whispers, and he lifts his head. Ren’s nose is dislodged from his hair as Hux’s head tips back to rest on the bed.

In this soft light, against the faded colors of the quilt, Hux’s eyes are bright green, pupils blown. His hair is mussed and soft, pieces of it falling over his forehead. He gazes at Ren with a clarity that shouldn’t be possessed by a drunk man.  
Hux’s hand moves across Ren’s shoulder blades, up the back of his neck, and then is pushing Ren’s bangs back up and away from his face.

“Oh, Ren…” Hux whispers again, his eyes searching in Ren’s own like they hold the answer to every question he’s ever been too stubborn to ask. He says it like he recites this in his mind every day. Like what he sees in Ren’s eyes is so predictable, so typical. This time Ren can hear the warning in his voice. 

“Hux-”

And suddenly Hux’s stained lips are on his. Hux holds their mouths together harshly, almost too hard, and the first bump of his nose has Ren’s mouth opening in surprise. There is a tongue in his mouth now, licking across the flat plane of his own, trying to tease it up into a dance. And he does, _fuck_ , he lets his tongue tangle with Hux’s and he opens his mouth wide to swallow down the moan Hux sends through him like transmission from one lost ship to another. 

_(Stop it stop it stop it now before you won’t be strong enough to ever stop)_

Both Hux’s hands are on his neck then, and Ren can feel his his thumbs press into his throat and he wonders if Hux is remembering how Ren did not just choke him that day but had _strangled_ him. His shoulders push in, and he pins Hux’s body to the bed with his mouth like a bug on a pin. 

Hux moans again, and the sound of him loving being pinned, needing the feeling of Ren’s weight holding him down, is what pushes Ren back into himself.

He wrenches his mouth from Hux’s, sucking in breath. Hux’s face follows him up, eyes lidded, and smiling, wet mouth going for his again. Ren grasps his hair in the back, and pulls his head back down to the bed, trying not to see how confusion is starting to light up in Hux’s eyes. 

“Stop it,” he says, and he has to stop himself from clearing his throat at the sound of his low, wrecked voice.

Hux blinks, his eyes moving from Ren’s eyes to his mouth and then back again. He tries going up again, putting his lips forward, but Ren’s hand keeps him down.

“Stop it, Hux.”

Hux’s eyes shut and he moans again, his body moving under Ren’s like a wave, and his arms grasp desperately at Ren’s back, trying to pull him closer and get their mouths together again.

“Oh, please. _Please_ Ren...” he whispers, and Ren can feel his shame again. It shames him to ask for Ren’s mouth back on his, but his need is greater than his pride.

“No,” Ren says roughly, trying to sound as forceful as he can. “We’ve talked about this.”

Hux’s eyes open again and this time they’re angry. Where Hux’s face was desperate, flushed, wanting, Ren can only see rage now. His mouth opens once, but he can’t seem to have the words to describe the heat that’s now burning through him.

“You’re fucking _pathetic_ ,” he hisses. “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” Ren admits, cheeks burning.

“Oh, _fuck you._ ”

He can feel Hux freezing over. His hate is turning to ice in his veins, his eyes going cold. He takes his arms away from Ren, letting them fall to rest on the bed, and he lifts his chin in a display of superiority that might have been more effective without Ren’s body on top of him.

“Get off of me,” he spits.

Ren goes without complaint, but it pulls at him to detract himself from Hux’s warmth. He stands up, and he feels foolish with his messy clothes and his dirty hair and his body that doesn’t have a place here any longer. He doesn’t want to leave suddenly, he wants to stay and let himself be foolish.

“Do you want me to go?” he asks before he can think how stupid he probably sounds.

Hux scoffs, rolling his eyes. “I think that goes without saying.”

Hesitating, Ren takes one step away from the bed, away from the magnetic pull of Hux’s body, but he turns back again. “Do you need anything?”

“ _Just go away, Ren!_ ” Hux yells, sitting up on the bed, face red and hands fisting in his quilt. His eyes are large, clear, like he was never drunk at all, and Ren half expects to see himself reflected in their pained depths. Ren can feel his embarrassment. 

Hux feels just as foolish as he does. He feels like he presented himself, let himself be open, and that Ren had not liked what he saw.

Ren wants to protest. There’s nothing wrong with Hux, there’s something wrong with him. Ren cannot trust himself with Hux, cannot promise that Hux can trust him.

But Hux wouldn’t listen to him. He never does.

So he turns and goes without further protesting, closing the door behind him. He pauses just outside the door, and he takes a deep breath as he turns to face it again. He gently rests his forehead on the cool surface, and closes his eyes. From within the room he feels Hux’s anger, his humiliation, and he imagines Hux thinking that this has been the most humiliating, awful day of his life because Ren made it so.

He stands in Hux’s darkened quarters, lost. All of a sudden he’s exhausted again, feels a weariness deep in his bones like he’s being weighed down by stones. 

Ren doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to go back to his empty rooms and all of his empty spaces and face what he did. It’s better here, somehow, with a living, breathing, suffering thing just on the other side of the door.

Hux will hate him for this. 

He tries not to think too hard about why he goes to Hux’s low ice-blue couch and collapses on it like a man who walked a thousand miles. Tries not to think about Hux in the room next to him, how their mouths had fit together like stars aligning, like they were meant to be. 

Ren curls in on himself and tries.

_(That’s all he ever does. Try)._


End file.
